At 国产吃瓜黑料, we take a lot of things seriously, including adventure storytelling, our dogs, perfecting the campground margarita, and听reviewing gear. Gear, in particular, sits high on that list. The right running听shoes, skis, backpack, or camp stove can be the difference between enjoying your time outside and merely enduring it.听We consider gear so important听that we publish two standalone magazines every year dedicated to it. We鈥檝e been running our Summer Buyer鈥檚 Guide since 1996听and our Winter Buyer鈥檚 Guide since 2007. Each issue is about the newest, techiest, all-around best outdoor clothing and equipment on the market for the upcoming听season.听
If you judged these books by their covers, you鈥檇 never know how much dirt, sweat, and mileage go听into deciding what products to feature. (This is thanks to the work of our talented photo and design teams. They turn each volume鈥攁nd the corresponding online pages, which you鈥檝e probably seen titled 鈥淭he Best [Fill in the Blank] of 2020鈥 and so forth鈥攊nto听polished works of art.)
As Buyer鈥檚 Guide editor, my job is to work with our team of editors, fact-checkers, designers, photographers, and writers to put the whole thing together. So, I thought I鈥檇 give you a peek behind the scenes. Our testing process starts six to eight months before each print Buyer鈥檚 Guide reaches your hands. We rely on a roster of 40 category directors, many of whom work with their own network of testers to gather feedback from the widest possible range of users. By far the biggest of these operations is our road- and trail-running shoe听category. Co-directors Cory Smith听and Lisa Jhung enlist the help of 36 runners who help them evaluate each season鈥檚 new models. For summer 2020, they tested 40 shoes from 19 brands.
Each year, I come away newly shocked by the lengths to which our reviewers go to figure out which pieces rise above the rest. In 2020, Amy Juries听tested bikepacking gear over the course of several trips that took her 2,000 miles through eight countries. Impressively, everything except her bike survived getting run over by a truck in Jordan听in the process. Jen Ripple听took advantage of a 2,612-mile, 14-day fishing road trip to test gear for the women鈥檚 fly-fishing page. Scott Yorko put men鈥檚 travel gear through the wringer during a stint of globe-trotting that lasted 52 days and involved 19,824 miles of flying. Berne Broudy hiked 300 miles in 11 states and spent a month鈥檚 worth of nights under the stars to figure out which hiking boots were the best.
Between 300 and 400 products make it into the finished pages, but that鈥檚 only a fraction of what we test, which totals well over 1,000听individual pieces of gear from dozens of brands, big and small. Items rise above the cut for any number of reasons, including fit, function, and new advances in materials and technology. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to one basic qualification: whether the item makes our lives outside better. Because, really, choosing the right gear should always be that simple.听